Exclusive Pics: Inside Yemen’s Shadow War

ZINJIBAR, Yemen -- For more than a year, Abyan province has been the epicenter of an intensifying covert war against Ansar al-Shari'a, a new al-Qaida incarnate spreading along the remote shores of the Gulf of Aden in southern Yemen. Hellfire missiles fired from Predator and Reaper drones have killed hundreds of Ansar soldiers since last June when the CIA began flying its fleet of drones from a secret base somewhere on the Arabian Peninsula.

Since Ansar established its first so-called Islamic Emirate in Abyan last spring during the tumult of Yemen's revolution, the CIA and Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) have carried out some three dozen air strikes, a fivefold increase by U.S. forces over the nine preceding years combined.

Others insist the barrage of remote-guided missiles needlessly killed scores of civilians and inflamed the smoldering al-Qaeda threat: Ansar has taken to Afghanistan-style suicide bombings across Yemen as a means to settle the score, killing some 100 soldiers at a parade rehearsal in May, assassinating the top Yemeni military commander in the war against al-Qaeda in June and killing a top Yemeni intel chief in July.

Amidst this tumult, Yemen’s interim President Abd Rabu Mansour Hadi is quietly steering the divided country toward multiparty elections in 2014, as part of a US-backed Gulf country power transfer deal that kicked longtime dictator Ali Abdullah Saleh out of office and arguably jerked the Arab world's poorest country from the precipice of civil war. The success or failure of the Gulf plan could have major ramifications for the wider region, where Somalian pirates swarm the Gulf of Aden, through which swollen oil tankers from the world's number one supplier pass daily.

In an exclusive reporting trip to the war-ravaged hamlet of Zinjibar, Abyan’s provincial capital, Danger Room caught a first glimpse of Washington’s latest shadow war.

All photos by Casey L. Coombs

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Drugs and Decapitation

“Yeah, a lot of humanitarian workers have come here since al-Qaida left, but all they've done is take pictures," a local qat dealer told Danger Room. Ansar al-Shari’a restricted the use of qat, an amphetamine-laced leaf chewed by millions of Yemenis, in cities like Zinjibar. Some residents chewed the substance in complete isolation after witnessing their militant leaders publicly behead alleged spies and thieves.

Leftover Bombs, Mangled Bodies

The road to Zinjibar is littered with bullet-pocked storefronts, bombed out buildings and thousands of land mines planted by Ansar militants, who fled a 10,000-strong wall of ground troops amidst intensifying drone strikes of Operation Golden Swords. Since mid-June, a ragtag team of Yemeni de-miners have discovered more than 3,000 pieces of unexploded ordnance (UXO) in and around Zinjibar, according to the Governor’s Office in Abyan. More than 80 returning residents have been killed and hundreds more mangled by UXO, according to reports.

Abandonment

Yemen’s Central Security Forces abandoned their compound on the outskirts of Zinjibar shortly after Ansar militants besieged the city in May 2011, raising speculation that former President Saleh had struck a deal with al-Qaeda in a last-ditch effort to show Washington the country would fall to pieces without him.

Sneak Attack

Ansar militants beat back encroaching military forces from Zinjibar using tanks and other weapons pillaged from the Yemeni forces in nighttime raids. On March 4, Ansar soldiers surprised the 25th Mechanized Brigade stationed outside Zinjibar, slaying as many as 200 sleeping soldiers, kidnapping 73 more and pillaging much of the base’s armaments. Ironically, US drones were in turn forced to destroy Yemeni weaponry stolen by the militants.

Golden Swords

Armed tribesmen across Yemen joined US and Yemeni forces in dislodging Ansar al-Shari’a from Abyan. A team of American special operations forces arrived to Yemen on the cusp of Operation Golden Swords to prepare the country’s unprofessional military and tribal forces for the looming battle against mujahideen-trained guerrilla forces hidden amongst civilian populations in Zinjibar and neighboring cities. In late May, Ansar militants fired on three special ops soldiers at their hotel in the eastern town of Hodaida along the Red Sea.

Mechanized Brigade

A convoy of troops from the 25th Mechanized Brigade, who escorted Danger Room through Zinjibar, gaze down on tribal soldiers at a makeshift military checkpoint in Zinjibar. Some observers predict that once their common jihadist enemy is defeated, US-trained tribal and military soldiers will turn on each other to settle deep-seated hostilities stemming from years of northern military aggression against the south following Yemen’s bloody 1994 civil war.

Tunnel Dweller

A Yemeni intelligence chief leads Danger Room through a series of sandy tunnels Ansar members dug from Zinjibar to the neighboring 25th Mechanized Brigade camp and adjacent military barracks. Tiptoeing to the tunnel’s entrance along a narrow de-mined pathway in Zinjibar’s unbearable humidity leant insight into the fanatical tenacity required of the tunneling designed to sabotage the enemy.

"Don’t Confuse Your Enemies With Your Friends"

Zinjibar's sole restaurant to reopen since Ansar al-Shari’a was driven from the city mid-June. Many al-Qaida members still remain, however, according to the Yemeni intelligence chief who escorted Danger Room through Abyan. After a minute of shooting photos and speaking with locals at the restaurant, gunfire rang out and the intel chief ordered Danger Room back to the armed convoy. An hour later in the neighboring town of Jaar, a local al-Qaida leader Danger Room’s correspondent had met while reporting from there in March drove up on his motorcycle, acknowledged his journalistic acquaintance and drove into town unnoticed. "Don’t confuse your enemies with your friends," the intel chief said while driving away from Jaar.

Drones and Crucifixion

A Yemeni policeman in Zinjibar said US drones in Yemen were "90 percent accurate,” even though statistics detailing the number of people targeted and killed remains classified. One of the targeting techniques CIA and JSOC have employed, as illustrated by legal documents from the shari’a court in Jaar, is the placement of “chips” on al-Qaeda leaders. One suspect was sentenced to the death penalty for “recruiting spies working for the American warplanes and delivering chips to the spies, also he was the direct supervisor on placing it in the locations and cars of the mujahidin.” Other punishments for those who “wage war against Allah and his Messenger,” according to court documents, include “crucifixion or their hands and their feet should be cut off on opposite sides or they should be imprisoned.”

Lone Wolves

An Ansar al-Shari’a suicide bomber killed 29 Yemeni soldiers in this building near Zinjibar. Since being driven from Abyan by US and Yemeni military forces, Ansar al-Shari’a launched operation “Lone Wolf,” which orders explosives-laden martyrs to destroy military and Western targets. In the past month, Ansar’s “lone wolves” have assassinated the top army general in southern Yemen and a top intelligence official in Sanaa; more than a dozen other suicide missions have been foiled in Sanaa alone in recent weeks.